Transformation of political elite in Azerbaijan

Download

index.pdf

Date

2020

Author

Ataşer, Gökhan Alper

Metadata

Show full item record

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Item Usage Stats

457
views

270
downloads

This thesis explores the transformation of political elite in the context of post-Soviet authoritarian consolidation. The study is primarily based on semi-structured in-depth interviews and field findings are evaluated within a theoretical and historical framework. A common characteristic of many post-Soviet regimes is their reliance on hybrid regimes. By not rejecting democratic principles and practices altogether, these regimes differ from classical authoritarian regimes of the past century. In the case of Azerbaijan hybrid regime is associated with regional networks, patronage, and strict control of elite by controlling information flows. The changes and continuities between the rules of Heydar Aliyev, the founder of the authoritarian system and his successor Ilham Aliyev in terms of the structure and functioning of elite are also among the findings. While securing state authority was a priority during Heydar Aliyev, democratic rights and freedoms were relatively advanced despite the fact that democracy was not a part of the discourse. During Ilham Aliyev, monopoly of power was secured, but these rights and freedoms were severely curtailed despite the democratic discourse. Occasional changes of cadre occurring within the ruling elite serve authoritarian rule rather than representing a democratizing dynamic. Consequently, hybrid regime is characterized by a hybrid elite. In accordance with the elite theories, the primary role of the elite in defining the political system is affirmed. Political transformation is an elite-led processes, but this study also acknowledges that their construction can be better understood in the background of historical experiences.

Subject Keywords

Elite (Social sciences), Elite (Social sciences), Elite theory, political elite, hybrid regimes, post-Soviet, Azerbaijan.

URI

http://etd.lib.metu.edu.tr/upload/12625421/index.pdf
https://hdl.handle.net/11511/45470

Collections

Graduate School of Social Sciences, Thesis

Suggestions

OpenMETU
Core

Making of new Islamism in Turkey transformation of the Islamist discourse from opposition to compliance Özçetin, Burak; Ayata, Ayşe; Department of Political Science and Public Administration (2011) This thesis analyzes the transformation of Islamism from an anti-systemic and oppositional force to a compliant and submissive political ideology. The thesis locates the approach towards established political and economic relations at its centre. The thesis argues that the transformation, which led to formation of the Justice and Development Party, has begun in the late 1980s and early 1990s. To give the contours of this transformation, the thesis presents a detailed analysis of anti-systemic and systemic p...
Transformation of the State and Class Relations: Furthering Authoritarianism in Turkey Topal Yılmaz, Aylin (null; 2017-11-09) This paper aims to contribute to the debate on the transformation of state in different historically specific contexts by problematising the concept of authoritarian neoliberalism. It intends to do so by exploring the reorganisation of social forces and transformation of state power within an authoritarian state form as exemplified by the case of Turkey. It will also attempt to refresh class analysis in order to develop a better understanding of different modalities of reproduction of labour quite often wit...
The democratic deficit of the European Union : an institutionalist approach Kodakcı, Devrim; Gitmez, Ali; Department of European Studies (2004) This thesis analyses the democratic deficit problem of the European Union in a historical context. As the Union develops from a purely economic community into political and social entity, its democratic credentials are put into question. In this thesis, it is argued that technocratic and elitist institutional structure of the Union causes this democratic deficit. Therefore, in order to rectify it and make the Union more legitimate in the eyes of its citizens, the institutions of the Union should be re-struc...
Rescaling of social relations towards subnational regional space : an investigation of Turkish case Gündoğdu, İbrahim; Şengül, Hüseyin Tarık; Department of Political Science and Public Administration (2006) In the last thirty years, capitalist social relation on the one hand, created a world that is interconnected in the means of economic and political; on the other hand, produced differentiated and fragmented uneven spaces. In this context, social theory has interested in space and spatial differences, and inserted space into analysis of social relations for some time. In this thesis, the current issue of the construction of subnational regional space is explored through a conceptual approach in which space i...
Political leadership and democratic transition : the case of Askar Akaev in post-Soviet Kyrgyzstan Öraz, Seçil; Akçalı, Pınar; Department of Eurasian Studies (2007) This thesis analyzes the role of political leadership in post-Soviet democratic transition in Kyrgyzstan by looking at the case of Askar Akaev. Despite the fact that a variety of components can be considered as relevant for the democratic transition process in Kyrgyzstan, due to the highly personalistic nature of Kyrgyz politics, the issue of political leadership needs to be addressed for this purpose. In that sense, the converse trajectories of Kyrgyz democratization (an initial democratic leap till mid-19...

Citation Formats

G. A. Ataşer, “Transformation of political elite in Azerbaijan,” Thesis (Ph.D.) -- Graduate School of Social Sciences. Sociology., Middle East Technical University, 2020.